'The Walking Dead' Season 10 Ending Explained: Who are the armored figures and how do they affect Season 11?
Spoilers for 'The Walking Dead' Season 10
After several long months of waiting, Season 10 of 'The Walking Dead' has arrived, bringing an end to the Whisperer War and setting up the primary antagonists of its final season in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth arc brought an end to the 'The Walking Dead' comics, but given how seriously the shows and the comics have diverged, even well-versed comics fans only have a vague idea of how the events of Season 11 may play out. We take a look at the end of Season 10 of 'The Walking Dead' and what it means for the show's final season.
End of The Whisperers
The Whisperer War ended, appropriately enough, not with a bang but with a whisper. Instead of an all-out war that pits the dwindling survivors against the largest walker horde they'd ever seen, the remaining survivors covered themselves up in zombie guts, used loudspeakers to lead the horde away, and then Lydia (Cassady McClincy) and Carol (Melissa McBride) manage to lead what remains of the walkers off of a cliff. Even without the speakers, Lydia uses knowledge from her mother Alpha (Claire Morton) to lead the walkers where she wants them to.
None of this would be possible, of course, without taking out the leader of the Whisperers - Beta (Ryan Hurst). In a terse battle amidst a horde of zombies, Negan (Jeffery Dean Morgan) takes out Beta, stabbing him through the eyes and injuring him just enough for the surrounding zombies to converge on him. With their leader taken out, and their horde all having fallen off a cliff, the remaining Whisperers are no longer a threat, ending the Whisperer War once and for all.
This leaves the survivors, who now include a mysterious metal masked figure and the return of Maggie (Lauren Cohan), who did not have a major part to play in the finale besides a last-minute rescue, but will doubtless be a big part of Season 2.
The Commonwealth
Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) and the rest of the scouting crew may have missed their rendezvous with Stephanie, but given how much the survivors need to assimilate with other groups for protection, the scouting party decides to keep going until they find Stephanie's mysterious colony, no matter what. At the rendezvous point, Eugene shouts loudly enough to alert anyone listening to their presence - and after several minutes where the scouting party almost gave up hope, they are swarmed by armored figures dressed exactly like their comic-book counterparts, confirming that the Commonwealth will play a major role in Season 11.
We've talked about the Commonwealth before, but the gist of their story is that they are the largest collection of survivors the show has ever featured before, recreating a living, thriving city that almost returns life to the way it was pre-apocalypse. It's a civilization that reintroduces concerts, football games, restaurants, cafes and more - while also including the capitalist hierarchies that separate classes pretty strictly.
In the comics, Rick Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln on the show) and his team destabilize the oppressive hierarchy of the Commonwealth, which results in Rick's death. However, on the show, Rick is missing and presumed dead, and the survivors do not have the same bargaining position of their comic book counterparts - thanks to the Whisperers, they have lost most of their colonies, leaving them at the mercy of the Commonwealth in a way that leaves them a lot more vulnerable than before.
It's been a long wait for the finale to Season 10, and it will be a longer wait still for Season 11, but in the meantime, 'Fear the Walking Dead' and 'Walking Dead: World Beyond' will fill the gap for those craving zombie-filled content.